All very true. Which is one reason I dislike all talk of “complexity”—particularly in such a fuzzy context as debates with creationists.
But we do all have some intuitions as to what we mean by complexity in this context. Someone, I believe it was you, has claimed in this thread that evolution can generate complexity. I assume you meant something other than “Evolution harnesses mutation as a random input and hence as a source of complexity”.
William Dembski is an “intelligent design theorist” (if that is not too much of an oxymoron) who has attempted to define a notion of “specified complexity” or “Complex Specified Information” (CSI). He has not, IMHO, succeeded in defining it clearly, but I think he is onto something. He asserts that biology exhibits CSI. I agree. He asserts that evolution under natural selection is incapable of generating CSI—claiming that NS can at best only transfer information from the environment to the genome. I am pretty sure he is wrong about this, but we need a clear and formal definition of CSI to even discuss the question intelligently.
So, I guess I want to turn your question around. Do you have some definition of “complexity” in mind which allows for correct mathematical thinking about these kinds of issues?
“NS can at best only transfer information from the environment to the genome.” Does this statement mean to suggest that the environment is not complex?
No. As I understand Dembski—at least when he was saying this kind of thing—he admitted that the environment could be complex and hence that NS could instill complexity in evolved organisms. “But”, he then suggested, “where did the complexity of the environment come from, if not from a Designer who crafted an environment capable of directing the evolution of man (in His own image, etc.)”
Dembski, these days, admits to being a YEC, but the reason he is a YEC is based on a kind of appeal to Occam. “If we believe in God anyways, for reasons of Theistic Evolution”, he seems to argue, “Why not take God at His word and believe in 6 days and the whole schtick?”
Do you have some definition of “complexity” in mind which allows for correct mathematical thinking about these kinds of issues?
Not in the context of this conversation (since genetic information stops increasing after a while and goes on optimizing under more or less the same ‘complexity’; ‘fitness’ is closer, although is a moving target), but in about the same sense I don’t have a definition of ‘aging’ that allows “correct mathematical thinking” about it.
All very true. Which is one reason I dislike all talk of “complexity”—particularly in such a fuzzy context as debates with creationists.
But we do all have some intuitions as to what we mean by complexity in this context. Someone, I believe it was you, has claimed in this thread that evolution can generate complexity. I assume you meant something other than “Evolution harnesses mutation as a random input and hence as a source of complexity”.
William Dembski is an “intelligent design theorist” (if that is not too much of an oxymoron) who has attempted to define a notion of “specified complexity” or “Complex Specified Information” (CSI). He has not, IMHO, succeeded in defining it clearly, but I think he is onto something. He asserts that biology exhibits CSI. I agree. He asserts that evolution under natural selection is incapable of generating CSI—claiming that NS can at best only transfer information from the environment to the genome. I am pretty sure he is wrong about this, but we need a clear and formal definition of CSI to even discuss the question intelligently.
So, I guess I want to turn your question around. Do you have some definition of “complexity” in mind which allows for correct mathematical thinking about these kinds of issues?
“NS can at best only transfer information from the environment to the genome.” Does this statement mean to suggest that the environment is not complex?
No. As I understand Dembski—at least when he was saying this kind of thing—he admitted that the environment could be complex and hence that NS could instill complexity in evolved organisms. “But”, he then suggested, “where did the complexity of the environment come from, if not from a Designer who crafted an environment capable of directing the evolution of man (in His own image, etc.)”
Dembski, these days, admits to being a YEC, but the reason he is a YEC is based on a kind of appeal to Occam. “If we believe in God anyways, for reasons of Theistic Evolution”, he seems to argue, “Why not take God at His word and believe in 6 days and the whole schtick?”
Not in the context of this conversation (since genetic information stops increasing after a while and goes on optimizing under more or less the same ‘complexity’; ‘fitness’ is closer, although is a moving target), but in about the same sense I don’t have a definition of ‘aging’ that allows “correct mathematical thinking” about it.